There is a need for commercial airlines to be able to convert passenger seating arrangements from six seats to five seats in a row and back. There is a need to permit this change in configuration of the seats to be accomplished quickly and without removing the aircraft from service. Presently, the conversion from a six seat configuration to a five seat configuration, or vice versa, is accomplished by physically removing the seats of the existing configuration and replacing them with new seats to provide the other configuration. Such change requires considerable time and is usually performed when the aircraft is out of service.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,881,702, granted Nov. 21, 1989 to Richard J. Slettebak, and also owned by The Boeing Company, addresses the same problem as the present invention but for a different size aircraft, and provides a different type of solution. This patent also discusses the prior art and identifies some other prior art patents relating to aircraft seat constructions. U.S. Pat. No. 4,881,702, and the other patents identified in it, should be consulted for the purpose of putting the present invention into proper perspective relative to the prior art.
An object of the invention is to provide a seat construction which allows a quick and easy conversion of six seats in a row to five seats of a larger seat spacing, and vice versa. Another object of the invention is to provide a seat construction which will permit a quick and easy conversion of the seats, without the use of removable or plug-in parts.